Neringa Vasiliauskaite

"I am mostly interested in a spaces and how I can influence these with my objects."

Could you tell us a bit about yourself. How long have you been a practicing artist and where did you study?

I am originally from Lithuania and have been living in Munich for the past six years.

I have been studied in Vilnius Art’s academy for six years and got my master in stained glass. Some other few years I was successfully working in Vilnius Art academy with a students, but on 2011 I decided to I apply to Munich Fine Arts Academy and joined glass and ceramic class.

So I moved to Munich, where I’m already on my last studying years and prepare for my diploma work.

Your work uses coated glass with special metal oxide, which breaks up the light waves, resulting in a beautiful display of colour. Could you talk about your work and how you came to use this process?

I’m basically working with coated glass - very specific and complex material, which is hard to control. Actually, it can buy everyone in an manufactured companies. As I understood that, I was looking my own input to it.

It was something I was always wanted to work with, it somehow reflected me. Firstly, I was fascinated by the aesthetic and beauty of it, but of course, that wasn’t my aim and I started transforming it in another forms or experimented with different background colors.

At the last four years I developed a way to get more colors, which are seen as the final point on a surface of the work. My works basically consists of a two layers - glass as a front sheet and background, which is printed or airbrushed in a different colors. Coated glass is partially translucent, so the colors on the background are mixing together with the basic color of glass by creating even more colors. It’s somehow like mixing color on the palette, what the painters normally does, but in my case, I do that with a different materials. So, my works becomes a part of the space they are exhibited in reflecting the opposite and I can manipulate with it.

At the time I involve other materials in my works, such as printed rubber, wood, different minerals like silicon, some stones in to my works.

Parallelräume, installation view, 2017

Parallel Raum 1, 2016

'What if it had been something you had never seen before, but something you had thought or imagined. Solaris 1972', 2017

'What if it had been something you had never seen before, but something you had thought or imagined. Solaris 1972', 2017

Tell us a bit about how you spend your day/studio routine? What is your studio like?

I use the studio of stained glass, light an mosaic by Thierry Boissel in Munich art academy, where I fell free to use all the technics and machines I need to realise my objects. My place sometimes looks like a small laboratory, which includes many colourful reflecting and mirrored pieces of coated glass sheets, tubes, cylinders, rings and minerals.

I am working quite disciplined, starting my day early in the morning and finish at 17-18.00 p.m. Sometimes I need to work with polishing machines, which requires a lot of power and energy, that's why I start very early. Of course it depends in which situation I am, if I have an exhibition I spend more time in a studio. I prefer days when I can make some experiments with surfaces, work intuitive combining different materials or looking for a new one.

These are the last year I can use a studio in academy, so now I am looking for a new space to work after my studies.

Where has your work been headed more recently?

My working method consists of observation, perception, reflection and reaction. I am mostly interested in a spaces and how I can influence these with my objects. How the object can be a space, or a space can be a part of the object and it doesn’t matter which topic I take. I create spaces, atmospheres, moments, memories, which continually extends in my works.

I develop my work through a different situations, changing in space and time, the reaction of the observer and myself and countless other factors that demand an exceptionally subtle way of dealing with the environment. Based on this tentative, cautious approach, I continue to expand my own language of colour and form in space.

For me is important to conceive my work as a whole – as a personal research assignment in the sense of a confrontation with the realities of human perception. As a path transgressing borders between objectivity and abstraction.

Blau gold Raum, 2016

'Let it be said, that they found us very close together, in the light‘, 2016

'Let it be said, that they found us very close together, in the light (They might be a giants), 1971', 2017

How do you go about naming your work?

Because I’m generally working in a very abstract way, titles are very important part of my works.

I'm a big fan of films from the '70s, there I get some experiences or images which remains in my mind and comes out in a very abstract way in my works. Sometimes it’s a motion or atmosphere something you can feel, but not say or see. It’s like proceeded and transformed images in my own language.

When I am finished with my work, I select some quotes which would work as a specific guidelines and would refer to the viewer a direction and context he should think in, but not say too much. At the last time, I was working on the series of objects which got a title from the film ‚Solaris’ (1972) of Andrei Tarkovsky, such as "We don't know what to do with other worlds. We don't need other worlds. We need a mirror." The film transforms specific atmosphere and scenography of an artificial spaces, symbols, which I also would like to be materialised in my works.

What artwork have you seen recently that has resonated with you?

Anne Imhof’s work ‚Angst II’, which I saw in Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin.

I like how she is handling and manipulating with a space an emotion and puzzles it together.

‚Angst II‘ consists of music, sculptural elements, voices, actors and controlled drones that will form an overall picture and emotion of a surrealistic dream in another space you can walk thought and gather your own experiences.

Is there anything new and exciting in the pipeline you would like to tell us about?

Now I enjoy working on some new experimental works, which consists of different materials and prepare a big size work, which will be a part of the group show in Ulm museum on the middle of may in Germany. After that I’ll have my last Year show in academy where I’ll show installation of some wall and space objects which depends together.